A spectator's role wasn't exactly what Vanderbilt and John Cole had in mind for Cole's true freshman season last year. Yet less that halfway into Cole's first college game, that's what Cole became.

Fresh off a record-setting high school football career out of Somerset, Kentucky, Cole figured prominently into VU's plans last fall. But a torn meniscus in his right knee in the first half of opener at Miami (Ohio) took care of that, and suddenly, Cole's season was over almost as soon as it started.

"Any time you're used to be out there and playing the majority of time, then you have to sit, it's tough," Cole said of last fall. "That's something I never really had to deal with in high school."

Cole was not only used to playing, but being the star. Cole re-wrote the Bluegrass State's record books with some off-the-chart numbers: 1,896 yards and 28 touchdowns as a junior, 1,623 and 23 more as a senior (earning him Gatorade Player of the Year honors that fall in Kentucky), and 5,031 and 69 for his career.